The Verdict
eVGA's product are always a pleasure to test. They offer high quality graphics cards with a very nice after-sales program. Today's product tested all by itself even in it's default reference form kicks major ass for 249 USD. Now you can opt to drop another 50 USD for the 1792 MB of memory, but the reality is simple .. we tried hard, really hard to show the performance benefit of that phat increase in graphics memory. The reality however is that only at 2560x1600 at very hefty AA modes there's small difference measurable here and there in stringent conditions. Now we really had to reconfigure our games to be able to show you that difference.
So from that perspective, the additional 896MB of memory I'm afraid does not make much sense. Things might change though, I mean if history learned us one lesson, it's that the demand for framebuffer (graphics memory) doubles up roughly every two years. So in the long run the extra framebuffer will show some advantages. But sure it's relative alright.
Extra framebuffer aside, the GeForce GTX 275 is a kickass card to own of course. A card like this oozes with unadulterated gaming performance and is just priced really fair. The overclock we achieved today with this card was quite awesome as well. You'll have no issue squeezing 10 maybe even 15% more performance out of the card, which makes a great deal alright as we surpass GeForce GTX 285 performance.
The GeForce GTX 275 was launched with one sole reason only, to battle off the Radeon HD 4890. It's the cat and mouse game that ATI and NVIDIA have to play against each other. Competition is what makes this technology evolve and affordable, don't you ever forget that. By doing so NVIDIA accomplished it's mission absolutely.
We think that the GeForce GTX 275 is a very attractive card to purchase. You have the maximum available 240 shader processors at your disposal helping you out when that extra little bite is needed. The product is priced really fair and will unleash an awesome lot of gaming pleasure on your PC.
But if you'd ask me where I'd put my money, a faster clocked GTX 275 model, or a standard clocked GTX 275 with 1792MB of memory ? My money would be on the faster clocked product though. There's a direct, intricate and measurable effect in game performance related to the higher clock frequencies, opposed to trying the configure games to actual benefit from extra graphics memory.
Being a GTX 275, the card comes with full PhysX support and obviously also is CUDA ready, meaning that 3rd party software can actually utilize your GPU for other things than gaming. But sure, you purchase a card in this genre for gaming, and not the other way around.
So there you have it. The extra graphics memory on this product is hard to justify, making it a trivial decision. From a performance point of view the GTX 275 is of course a very lovely product, it will grant you a lot of gaming pleasure alright. eVGA has a very potent product here, backed with a very nice after-sales program as well. They top it off with a life-time warranty and as such, you hardly can go wrong with it. You will love the product, it's tweakability .. and who knows, a year from now you might be actually utilizing that additional framebuffer, but remember what we advised okay ?
Thanks go out to eVGA for shipping out this sample.
Give eVGA a visit here.
Site
Navigation
